Everyone that I have ever known makes fun of me for the shear fact that I love Miley Cyrus. I don’t know why I do, but I believe she is just another celebrity that let fame get to her. From day one I have been a fan and I will be a fan until I die. Go figure, I searched Miley Cyrus! From the time I hit enter it took .9 seconds, according to Google, to find 200 million results. My first three websites are Wikipedia, Miley Cyrus Official Site and her Twitter. I would say that the Wikipedia page is just talking about her life and also her accomplishments. Her site has pictures, information about her, and events of what she is doing. Also, her Twitter comes up which tells me what she has been up too and just talking about her life.
I believe that all of these are related for the mere fact that they all provide information about Miley Cyrus and 2 out of the 3 are more based on things that she has done or has posted about. Therefore, I would say that they are all similar to each other. I was very curious to see if what Eli was talking about in the article happens to my roommate and me. I would love to see if two separate articles show up and what types of articles pop up on her Google search!
When Katie, my roommate, looked up Miley Cyrus she came up with everything I came up with. It even took her Google .9 seconds to retrieve everything related to Miley Cyrus. Our search ended up being the exact same. I’m not too surprised at what I found though. My roommate and I just recently got our computers and we haven’t really been looking things up on Google or going to random websites. We both just find ourselves on Facebook. Also, we are from the same area and like about the same amount of things so therefore it didn’t surprise me when it came up with the same amount of results and the same top three websites.
I was really hoping to see a difference in websites between the two of us. Although it didn’t work for me I still believe in Pariser’s argument. Honestly, I find that to be a little unsettling that Google knows your likes. Personally I like to meet people and tell them my likes in person. I’m not a big fan of being limited to the amount of information that Google “says” that I like. Personally, who is Google to tell me what I like and what I don’t. I find this search to be a bad thing for me, but a good thing for businesses that are targeting people like me. You see, I don’t like looking through all of Google to find what I want so normally I just hit the first or second link. So therefore I see the advertisements and information off of the first or second website, which benefits the business.
Even though it’s good for businesses I believe that it’s bad for me. I don’t want to see a limited view of what Google has picked out for me based on my searches. I may search things for class and then it say that I like research topics, but in fact I had to look up a research topic for a class. Therefore I want to be able to pick and choose based off of what I know about myself. Since, I would say that I know more about myself than a website. I don’t believe that the Internet is a space for free knowledge and exchange of ideas. I believe yes it is an exchange of ideas, but it’s not free knowledge. We have to pay for the knowledge by, according to Eli, getting tracked by each website and by Google trying to find what you like or would like to see on certain searches.
Pariser, Eli. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. New York: Penguin, 2011. Print.
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